Wednesday 26 October 2011 22.14 EDT
First published on Wednesday 26 October 2011 22.14 EDT

Given the San Francisco Bay Area's rich tradition of political protest, it's no surprise that the Occupy Wall Street movement has flourished in cities like San Francisco and Oakland. But as Tuesday's attempt to quash Occupy Oakland attests, law enforcement agencies here have a habit of grossly and arbitrarily underestimating their citizens' first amendment rights. Although Wall Street is 3,000 miles away, the violence here is pushing the nationwide movement into a new, more confrontational phase, where the streets of Oakland are in the front lines.

Of course, free speech and assembly are exactly what is at stake at every Occupy gathering now. "I think we allowed people to exercise their rights to free speech and free assembly," interim Oakland police chief Howard Jordan told reporters. The police cited "health and public safety concerns" as their reasons for moving to break up the downtown tent settlement, and indeed, such issues needed to be addressed: an existing rat problem around City Hall was exacerbated by sloppy food storage, and officials claimed the encampment was a haven for drug and alcohol abuse.

But clearly, the protesters who refused to leave felt they had more to say – and they came back Wednesday night in even larger numbers to say it. Since the Occupy movement has not yet articulated any specific demands, it is difficult to say how long they should be allowed to demonstrate before moving along. In New York, the police department appears to have backed down from confrontational tactics to a strategy of waiting.

Despite the best efforts of Oakland's police, however, the broader Occupy movement isn't going away anytime soon. As the Vietnam-era draft did, the crippled economy has inspired the kind of fear and craving for change that compels people to gather and shout. The staggeringly high unemployment rate has left many feeling they have no option but to trumpet their sorrows. Tear gas and rubber bullets may not be much of a deterrent for those who have already been hobbled by invisible financial forces.